How do you help your 14yo dd deal with her bitchy friends

[askinfforfriend]

So dd is super sociable, loves her friends, but keeps coming home with this heart breaking stories of being ignored, inviting friends to come over and they planning something else im front of her, etc, etc etc.

If I had to guess I would say it may have something to do with her being a bit bossy and getting a bit carried away and maybe doing more talking than listening... I don't know! maybe I'm being unfair...who can understand teenage behaviour?

Anyway, I just have no idea what the cool appropriate thing is to say in this situation. Do I say to ignore them they're just bitches? Or do I tell her to keep inviting them to dp things in case their fickle interests turn in dd's favour? Or do I advise dd not to be bossy? I really hate telling her not to be herself when she's kind and generous truly loves her friends.

Thanks so much!

Apologies for the typos!

Hmmm, it’s hard, maybe she could try all your suggestions if she wishes too, one at a time to see what’s the most effective, abit like a experiment.

I’d possibly also explain that whilst it’s not nice these things just happen for all sorts of reasons throughout life and she should try ways to deal with it and sometimes just accept it as it is, whilst friends are important, it’s unlikely they will all still be friends after school, people come and go, it’s normal.

Talk about what a good friend is, and how people should treat each other. If her friends aren't treating her well she should distance herself a bit and be open to getting to know more people.

I've got a 13 year old and 16 year old girl. They just choose not to make friends with drama queen or mean girls/boys
Not all teenage girls are bitchy as I'm sure your dd isn't, so she needs to try and find friends who are nice. Both of mine have girls and boys in their class who are mean but they've always hung out with really nice non bitchy /dramatic boys and girls so it's been fine

Thanks. It's just so hard and sad... She prefers the company of a bad friend than to not have anyone to talk to / hang out with at school and after school

That's just the ideal situation Didlum but I'm just not sure the other girls are that horrible... I just worry there is a reason they don't want to hang out with dd :(

I may be unfair and hopefully I am but if I'm not I just don't know how to tell dd to be different. I know she's not mean, she's kind and generous. But the truth is this has been happening since she started secondary school and maybe even before...

My neighbour sounds a bit like you've described your dd, kind & nice but also talks more than her fair share & is really bossy. Honestly, it's really off putting - I constantly see her pushing the other dc into doing stuff that they'd probably rather not but it's hard for them to get a say in, as she's used to calling the shots & talks them down. The other children will then wait til she's out of reach & abandon whatever game & run off to do something else to escape.

I get that you don't want to change her but it's an important life skill to find out what other people want & to actually be interested in them. Maybe she's not as bad as all that but if she is, you'd be doing her a favour by doing a bit of role playing to show her how to behave & that might get better results.

Having said all that, it does seem that some children & sadly it is more girls than boys, like to flounce & get a bit of 'one up' on their friends, like there's a scoring system or something. I hope she finds a friend or two that are more stable. Remind her that quality is better than quantity. There are few things in life better than a good friend & I'm dreading a few years when my dd gets to this age.

Good luck!

How was she at maintaining friendships at primary school? From your description it sounds as though she may be struggling to read some of the social cues the other girls are giving off e.g. them planning to do something different when she's invited them over isn't necessarily rude or insulting, it may just be they want to do something different, or that she isn't in charge of. It also doesn't necessarily mean she's being excluded although that may be what she feels.

She may find it helpful to role play some of the situations with you so she can show you how her version of the scenario but also so she can have a go at being the group of girls and you can pretend to be her.

If you've got puppets or teddies or something available, you could do lots of wondering aloud, "eek I shouldn't have said anything about Thursday because @askinfforfriend DD will now invite me over. It's too embarrassing to say I'm not allowed to people's houses because of Dad's OCD..." and
"I wish puppet 1 hadn't mentioned Thursday. I know @askinfforfriend DD will do that friendly thing and invite us over but I don't want to go because all her games are noisy and I got a headache last time." Or "I'd go to @askinfforfriend DD's house if I knew she'd let me leave at 5pm - I got into trouble for being late home last time".

If you suspect your DD is someone who struggles to make friends in part because she is loud and bossy, she may benefit from practising some really explicit strategies with you - not to dilute who she is but to give the others an opportunity to be themselves with her. Maybe she could get into a pattern of listening out for an idea from one of the others and thinking of a friendly response to that e.g. "that sounds interesting!" or "I like the sound of that" or practise leaving space in the conversation for others to fill instead of feeling as though she needs to do it. I may be barking up the wrong tree but having friends sounds as though it's hugely important to your DD but her idea of how friendships work doesn't match up with her peers' ideas at the moment.

I had this problem at 14. They were just awful friends.

All that helped was eventually finding 'my people' and the kindness of a couple of girls who made it clear they wanted to befriend me. I actually do remember crying to my mum at the time. She helped me think about people I liked in different classes but didnt consider a friend as such. A particular person i thought of turned out to be awful as well, but she did introduce me to a wider group i became close with.

I have too many friends now can't keep up.

Also just to say - I don't think there is anything you can really do. It is a painful time for many of us and we just have to go through it I'm afraid.

DD had similar to this recently and I questioned a lot over it. That was quite useful as it turned out they were all arguing over a new boy and competing for him

What worked for DD was asking the kids individually to meet up then it became clear who was the issue - only the boys would meet up with DD and when they did one of them showed her a message saying they were banned from meeting DD 'as she was prettier and nicer' When the boys ignored this the other girls split in 2 and DD is now in a group with a few boys and her and another girl which is more stable.

It's worth questioning who has said what to whom and if anyone likes certain boys, a lot of the drama is over boys. Though DS reckons you get groups of kids - the studious kids, the popular kids and the ones who don't fit in and he said its the popular group there's drama in and best to avoid. DD is attracted to drama though.

I found at 14, especially in a girls school how bitchy girls can be. However I think if you know your daughter can be a bit bossy to probably advice her to listen more to others or you could just tell her to not bother with those group of girls and try to make friends with other people. I did this when I found that the group of friends were being bitchy to me and as soon as they saw me with new friends they wanted to hang around with me. I ended up having 2 different groups of friends that worked out in the long run. Teenagers can be cruel at times, if it's gets really bad, I would encourage you to possibly speak with her head of year about it and see if they can intervene.

I went through this in year 8. Joining Scouts helped, so my eggs weren't all in one basket. My mum and dad turned my phone off at night too so I wasn't reading messages and getting upset at bedtime. Actively looking for friends who were kind, loyal and less... cool? ... helped too. Thinking about people she knows but isn't friends with yet might help.

My daughter has been through this at school too. It is really upsetting seeing them sad and feeling helpless and I too was unsure of what to say/do. She is a typical teen and doesn't often welcome grown ups advice! I found listening to her off load then asking her what she would like helped, often she just wanted to talk/cry. I also found talking about what qualities made a good or bad friend really useful. She has now moved away from the toxic group of friends she was with to a much nicer group. I hope your daughter finds some better friends too. x

Thanks all. I think there really isn't much I can say.

She probably does need smarting up on her social skills and picking up on cues, but it's not an easy topic to discuss. We joke a lot about how she's little miss bossy, so I asked her yesterday if maybe she was being a bit like that at school. She says that she used to be, but she's really not anymore and she's mindful of it. But as soon as you get that reputation I suppose it's not easy to let it go.

She's also really passionate about a few topics: feminism, racism, trans rights, etc, to the point that she becomes totally unreasonable and impossible to talk to. I can imagine how those conversations may be a bit much with others who don't share the same passion.

Someone asked what were her friendships like at primary school and I always thought she was super popular with lots of friends, but it turns out that the same thing was already happening and they were all bitching about her behind her back.

Would help if she wasn't being the typical teenager who won't even entertain the prospect of having fun with her family. She luckily found a new passion for books and has been reading a book every other day, but that can be a lonely place to be sometimes, specially when you're very sociable :(

The absolute joy of being older! I may be wrinkly and sagging but I will never again have to worry about teenage friendships!!

If your daughter is struggling socially then it may be that when she has someone to talk to that she's talking too much or acting in a way to attract attention and is a bit too much? Seeming needy, sadly, will lead to people avoiding her. As I write this I know how awful it sounds but we don't look to attach ourselves to people who seem a bit...desperate.
Have you read The Unwritten Rules of Friendship? I can recommend it.

Notsandwiches I think that may be right. At least with me she acts a bit like that. She may spend days without saying anything and then she has these moments of over excitement that are a challenge for me, not sure a friend would put up with it :(

I'll have a look at the book, thank you.

Does she have interests out of school where she can form other friendship groups?
DD1 swam and played hockey so had friends with these activities.
DD2 played basketball and made friends there.
Both got part time jobs around that age and working with older people seems to promote maturity.
Teachers did joke about DD1 not having a radar for bitchyness, said it all went over her head.

Girls can be dreadful at that age and a lot of one up manship, dog eat dog, internal power struggles can be going on within a friendship group.

Maybe spend some mum and daughter time together, encourage her to rekindle some outside interests, to explore other existing or new friendships and maybe to tone things down a little bit with this group. Either they will or they won’t come around. Maybe the other girls have had enough of her and are ready to move on, perhaps someone new has come into the group or someone new has emerged to pull the strings. So it may not matter what your DD does now she may no longer be a fit with this group for one reason or another. Its so difficult. My DD tried desperately to hang onto a friendship group that no longer wanted her. She didn’t tell me until things were at breaking point. The girls moved on and all made out it was DD’s fault so they didn’t look like the bad guys. DD had a dreadful few months but eventually found some nice quiet friends with less main stream interests.

Thanks all, sadly it's reassuring to know this is not uncommon.
She does have some friends from her drama class but for some reason they never saw each other outside of the class. Halloween is coming and she's super excited about a sleepover and I'm dreading that it all falls through. I'm almost hoping we move up a tier on the restrictions so that the pressure is taken away (we're on the cusp of moving up before you think I'm totally insane )